Amid row over women's entry, Sabarimala opens for pilgrimage season

According to PTI, devotees were allowed to start the trek up to the hill shrine, located in a reserve forest in Pathanamthitta district, at 2 pm on Saturday.

Thereafter, they climbed the 18 steps to the temple with irumudikettu (sacred offerings to Lord Ayyappa) after priests performed the "padi puja."

New priests AK Sudheer Namboodiri (Sabarimala) and MS Prameshwaran Namboodiri (Malikapuram) then took charge.

To recall, the Supreme Court on Thursday delivered its verdict over a batch of petitions challenging the 2018 SC order, lifting the ban on entry of menstruating women into the temple.

The petitions argued that Lord Ayyappa is a celibate and hence menstruating women—aged 10-50—are banned.

The SC has referred the case to a larger seven-judge bench and did not stay its 2018 verdict.

Earlier on Saturday, 10 women from Andhra Pradesh were denied entry into the Sabarimala Temple while the Kerala government remained non-committal about offering protection to women devotees.

Kerala Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran on Friday said, "(Sabarimala) is not a place for activism. This is not a place for activists like Trupti Desai to show their strength. Let them go get a court order."

Meanwhile, speaking to NDTV, Save Sabarimala Campaign spokesperson Rahul Easwar argued, "The matter could be finalized after a seven-member bench of the SC decides on a few other things, which means one thing's clear to us all, that the verdict in 2018 wasn't final."

He added, "What's stopping people like Trupti Desai from waiting for a few months before the final verdict comes out?"